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Jacob 'Ross' Firestone |
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Jennie (Hartzell) Burkholder |
Jacob "Ross" Firestone was born in 1853 or 1855 in Lower Turkeyfoot Township, Somerset County, PA, the son of George and Catherine "Katie" (Younkin) Firestone.
Some sources erroneously give his birth year as 1848, which is not corroborated in the corresponding federal census of 1850.
A bachelor at the age of about 25, in 1880, he resided with his parents on their farm in Lower Turkeyfoot.
He entered into the rite of marriage with Jane "Jennie" Hartzell (1864-1951), a native of Kingwood and the daughter of Melchior and Anna "Annie" (Johnson) Hartzell of the family of Nicholas and Dorcas (Settle) Hartzell. She was 11 years younger than her spouse.
The couple produced three known children -- George Russell Firestone, Samuel Melchi Firestone and Mary Firestone.
The Firestones also took in a fatherless niece, Rebecca Henry, daughter of Barbara "Barbary" (Hartzell) Henry, and housed her circa 1886. Writing in a letter to her mother, the niece said: "Aunt Jane is going to Kingwood and going to get me a new hat and a new pair of shoes. I like it much better here than I did at Calls. They are very good to me. Aunt Jane is well. She has her garden very near made. She has the cabba [cabbage] ground to make yet and then it is done."
When Ross's father was dying in the summer of 1886 and wrote a last will, he stipulated that Jane was to receive the upper half of the "old home farm" which contained a building, even if she were to remarry after Ross's death. Ross also was to receive $5 cash from the estate. The terms spelled out that in the event Ross died first, Jane was to pay Ross's sister Harriet the sum of $100, made in four installments of $25 annually.
After the father died, Ross attended an estate auction and purchased a coverlid, stand, pocket knife, bridle and grey mare named "Mag.""
Sadly, Ross passed away at the age of 44 on April 6, 1897.
Jane survived him by more than half a century. She married again to J. Wesley Burkholder (1850-1915), the widower of her dead husband's sister Harriet. See their bio for more.
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Copyright © 2015-2017, 2020, 2024 Mark A. Miner |
Research for this page graciously shared by the late Olive Duff, the late Donna (Younkin) Logan and the late Joseph Warren Thomas III. |